the worst part is that everybody wanted Cleganebowl, zombies and dragons. We got some really awesome stuff that was super cool to watch, but the real meat and potatoes of this show (It's creativity, wit, complex interweaving story, and thematic actions and consequences) has been seriously lacking. Without the backbone, it doesn't matter how much amazing shit they put into an episode.

To add to that the absolutely depressing nature of how stripped down these characters are now. I feel like I've watched everyone get assassinated this season without their actual death. Davos hasn't had more than a page of dialogue, and offers no wise advice or strategy.

Tyrion is in the same boat except now somehow he's become absolutely stupid, lacks any cleverness, he actually reports Varys for treason just to commit treason immediately after. Let's also not forget his brilliant idea to hide the women and children in the crypts when the Night King can raise the undead (I mean literally come on D&D. Peter Dinklage talked about this in a behind the scenes and was clearly disappointed)

Bran is just literally whatever now. I don't even feel like trying to explain that they are just doing nothing with him.

Jon Snow, who's parent's relationship and his birth, was a catalyst for so many events and built up with such importance to have him reduced to three different dialogue options "I love you","You're my queen" and "I dont want it". And if the spoilers are correct his ending destination is fucking stupid. How does he take the black it there's no wall or white walkers???

Jamie, well there's no words to describe him this one other than did a complete U-turn along with Dany on caring about the innocent in the Battle of Winterfell. Emilia Clarke should be devastated about how stupid they made Dany out to be by alienating herself even further and turning her into a psychopath within 2 episodes

Lastly Cersei. Lena Headey must've been absolutely thrilled to make so much money by drinking wine and looking out the Red Keep for a whole season. Plus the delight of being with Euron's actor! The most absurd addition to any show so late on with such little episodes left that I've seen!

Just an absolute utter waste of good talent with shit writing. Glad we got the show in the first place, but if D&D weren't gonna take these past two seasons seriously they should have hired a writing team, or just quit and let someone else who does care/can write well do it. A big fuck you from them to all the people who worked with them on this show and all the fans who even afforded them opportunities to go on and do Star Wars.

I keep wondering why he wandered for years, why we had to watch him being dragged or carried hither and yon, why we had to lose Hodor and Meera had to lose Jojen, if it was all for one night in one battle, of sitting out in the garden being bait.

Why... Did they wrap this shit up? Isn't this a cash cow? Are they looking to fire all the expensive actors and rehire with a new cheaper crew and slightly altered story with more design around ad space?

It was in a Forbes article yesterday. Im looking for the link. Found it:

And then there’s George RR Martin, who has always thought the show was cutting too much from the books. A long time ago he said the 10 episode seasons should be more like 13, and more recently he’s said that the show could continue well, well beyond eight seasons. Here’s him at the Emmys last year:
“I don't know," Martin said. "Ask David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] when they come through. We could have gone to 11, 12, 13 seasons, but I guess they wanted a life.”

I just don't get that whole thing with D&D wanting to move on to other things (like one of many Star Wars additions...), or "have a life".

Game of Thrones will inarguably be their greatest work, no matter what, by far. It's obviously one of the top 5 best, most popular shows ever. Moving on to Star Wars is by no means a step up for them... What are they thinking?

I just don't get that whole thing with D&D wanting to move on to other things (like one of many Star Wars additions...), or "have a life" as GRRM put it.

Game of Thrones will inarguably be their greatest work, no matter what, by far. It's obviously one of the top 5 best, most popular shows ever. Moving on to Star Wars is by no means a step up for them... What are they thinking? Is this NOT what they would want to be working on? The biggest project of art they could be working on - do they not enjoy it...?

This is a great comment. I, too, believe that Star Wars is a lateral move. Game of Thrones is an excellent property with rich lore. Even without the road map provided by GRRM, they had a story with a plethora of possibilities at their fingertips. How could writing the next Star Wars trilogy provide any more creative opportunities than GoT?

Was it just the money? I'm sure they could have named their price with HBO. Surely it couldn't be the characters and story! The GoT characters are arguably more interesting and dynamic than most if not all of the characters in Star Wars.

Star Wars is strictly a good v. evil story. No inbetween. The palette of nuanced grays GoT offers would be far more attractive, in my opinion, to story tellers and creatives. The supple dialogue between Varys and Baelish alone is worth the opportunity costs of declining Star Wars.

With the past few seasons, especially these past few episodes, it's pretty clear they aren't that great at writing nuanced gray morality. The last episode is a very clear Dany bad and Jon good dichotomy. Star Wars will be much easier for them to write, since character motivations are typically more straight forward.

Not to mention right after she did one of the most selfless things she does in the entire series (helping defend against the nk dany is the only one who really could have said fuck it I’m out and fly to essos). It’s like saving someone from a sickness one day just so you can stab them the next, there was hardly any buildup (once again a victim of shortened seasons and poor writing to make the plot fit that constrained time).

Could have dramatically improved it simply with seven and eight being 10 episodes each. So many plot points are fine on paper, but ruined by being so rushed. Jaime going north, knighting Breinne, fucking her, then changing his mind and leaving for Cersei is probably fine over 20 episodes, but doing it in three is a fucking ripoff.

Rewatching the series I'm going to either stop watching there or after s8e2. Will the NK march south and surprise Cersei? Is winterfell going to be overwhelmed and everyone's forced to flee? Is Bran relevant? Will Stannis come down from the heavens in a beam of sunlight and take what is rightfully his? All up to my imagination.

That's really easy, it looked like everybody was about to die in the final Night King scene/montage, so you can just cut to black before Arya jumps out to kill NK. NK and Bran stare at each other, NK reaches for his sword to kill him, and then BOOM hard cut to black with the music also abruptly ending. Basically The Sopranos ending again.

Ya know I recently finished rewatching Sopranos and I’m ok with the ending. I took it as the bell ringing was Tony’s time to go. He looked up someone came in shot him dead while having his family dinner. I’m ok with that.

Yeah, it's a perfect ending. Bobby says a few episodes earlier "You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?" The fact that it just cut to black was such a great way to show how abrupt life can end. Plus it helped avoid any pointless melodrama that would have taken away from the tone of the show.

Sopano's is a good ending. You see it that way and that's valid. I probably dont, but I think more importantly you can decide and the show ends with the world of these characters continuing in some way. Never understood why people don't like it - other than those who want every single thing drawn out for them.

I’m wondering how their Star Wars trilogy will be perceived now. At first I was excited when I heard they were getting a trilogy, especially with rumors of it being Old Republic, but now I really hope they don’t fuck it up. If they turn around and make some awesome Star Wars flicks it’ll help the wound they’ve given to me from Game of Thrones

Many more have seen the petition than signed it. As a rule of thumb I got by the '10 rule', 10k upvotes on a post? 10x that many people have seen it. And usually no more 10% of 10k have commented on it unless it's a highly controversial subject. So, 60k people signed it? About 600k people have seen it.

let's assume that the ratings numbers are accurate (~17 million tuned in for the long night): it would take an order of magnitude more signatures before it would gain any real traction. something like millions, idk probably 3-5ish at minimum. then consider the logistics of having to schedule out another ~6 months or so of shooting at various locations which would require booking, budgeting for everything from sets to wardrobe to equipment and crews, not to mention the time it would take the screenwriters to create and edit drafts and then eventually all that work goes into post for another couple months.

i think the best we could realistically hope for is that someone with a connection at hbo who would be able to perhaps get together small groups of the cast when they have time between other gigs to create fleshed out 'season 8 episode 2.5' type shorts, with an intention of filling in the gaps. even that would cost a lot and require massive effort, assuming the cast has the ability or is even willing to do so.

our only real hope is for george to finish the books. that's a huge ask.

Its never made any damn sense why she didnt immediately take kings landing. The whole thousands of innocents will die always made zero sense. The dragon was surgical if she used it that way. Kings landing we saw that. She only took out what needed to be took out initially. She could have done exactly the same thing that led to the surrender seasons ago.

Tyrion was problem in the show but in reality its just shitty writing to get her to the point of insanity we saw.

Seriously. The scorpions weren't even made at this stage (Varys could have found out that they had no dragon defenses through his spy network), she could have just flown in and done her thing. Surgical strike.

this show became so stupid in 5 episodes it's insane. Season 7 was weak but it was never a shitshow like this.

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EDIT: AND NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT, FUCKING ARYA, IN SEASON 1, SHE WAS IN THAT FUCKING DRAGON SKULL ROOM, AND SHE CAME OUT OF IT, YET WHEN SHE BECOMES METAL GEAR FACELESS SHE GOES STRAIGHT TO THE MAIN GATE, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

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EDIT2: AND BEHOLD THE SPIDER HIMSELF, THE ONE WHO DID EVERYTHING FOR THE REALM, LORD OF ORPHANS VARYS IS THE ONE THAT WAS HAPPILY CONSPIRING IN THAT ROOM, BUT NO FUCK ME IF TALKS ABOUT IT, DAMN YOU D&D

Arya used that secret passage twice lol. Once when she discovers it after hearing Varys and Illyrio scheming, and again to get outside the Keep when the Lannisters started slaughtering the Stark bannerman.

In the books, scorpion bolts aren't effective against dragons unless they hit a weak spot due to the thick scales which provide armor, as far as we know Danny's could grow to the size of the largest dragon Balerion, he was able to melt the largest castle in Westeros, if logic followed there wouldn't be a single army that wouldn't surrender to her, no one has forgotten about the first Targaryen conquest and the characters talk about it constantly, I understand that the writers were in a difficult spot with the dragons having no real challenge but that's how they've been written, D&D don't want to follow the obvious conclusion but its obvious because that's what the narrative has been leading to.

Even worse, some of the stone buildings in the streets started crumbling apart before they even got hit by Drogon's fire.
I mean they could try and explain it away with the blast-wave of the fire being powerful enough to just knock down stone buildings, but how the fuck are so many characters just perfectly fine after being in the direct vicinity of a flaming deathray of doom that even makes buildings explode 5-10m away from its flames?

I'm willing to grant them blowing up the wall at winterfell since Viserion may not have used normal dragon fire or was boosted up by the NK's magic or some shit. Not to mention that those walls were ice-cold and the stonework likely already a bit compromised and moist. So it could make sense that a sudden rise in temperature would cause enough steam to build up to force an explosion like we saw.

To be fair the one notable instance that scorpion bolts were used against dragons was the Dornish fleet against Vhagar, Vermithor, and Caraxes. All three of which were much much older and larger than Drogon and the Bolts the Dornish used all glanced off their scales, which makes sense as the older dragons get, the thicker their scales are. Rhaegal was practically an infant compared to those three dragons.

She'd already done a surgical strike on all the walls. She didn't need to raze the city.

Really though the issue is they rushed too much into this episode and didn't give time for her insanity to properly enter the plot. If they'd done that it would've been pretty damn neat, the irony that the wildfire ready to burn KL should it fall out of targaryen hands, and that Jaime's efforts were all in vane.

If she can destroy all that with 1 dragon, why did she even wait like a month+ on Dragonstone?

Cersei story over - proceed to NK story. Dany loses Viseryion helping Jon, and then Rhaegal during the battle against NK, and along the way she loses Ser Jorah and Missandei. Causing her to go deeper into madness and grief.

Dany attacks Kl with 3 dragons, she kills cersei etc and sits on top of red keep to roar, some idiot lannister tries to hit her with ballista and instead shots viserion who dies. Dany thinks she is targeted, goes nuclear on KL.

NK breaks through wall with magic, aotd attacks winterfell, but its empty, people went south instead of suicide.

Word gets to Dany, who regrets massacre of KL and tries to save her people and redeem herself. She gets other kingdoms to bend the knee (after Kl everyone is like yeah sure, my queen).

Massive army, dothraki, unsullied, 2 dragons, banners from tullys, dorne, stark and rest vs 1 million of aotd. They have the numbers, but living had made preparations.

Some main characters die, some live, Jon battles Nk, Dany sacrifices herself in some way and redeem herself. At the end Jon is king and starts rebuilding.

Literally lowered the IQ of Tyrion to handicap her in the stupidest way like the "kidnap a wight bullshit". Like literally any way to take Kings Landing she could've done. Completely unbelievable and forced

"I have an idea! Let's try reasoning with Cersei! I know it blew up in our faces the first 17 times we tried it, but this time we are going to approach it differently. This time we will be completely defenseless!

The first handicap was having Dany leave Dario in Essos. Dario could have easily gone up the secret cave entrance that Tyrion knew about and assassinated Cersei in her sleep. Or you know, send the whole unsullied through that entrance, single file, while the rest of the army attacks from the outside.

When Dany came to KL she thought she is being awaited and will be applauded by the commoners. But over time she witnesses that she is not welcome. Nobody actually cares, actually more people want Jon to be the king.

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I think what show is trying to show here is human mind is complicated. And that complicated mind REQUIRES A FUCKING GOOD SCRIPT, ONLY IF WE HAD GOOD PERSISTENT MOTHERFUCKING WRITERS.

The city being a tenderbox with no fire department is a good actual reason not to, but never mattered once in the story. Taking Casterly Rock first actually wasn't a bad move. At that point Danny effectively controls the 7 kingdoms and can take the city at her leisure. And she can control the narrative while she does so. A better plan for long term peace and stability.

That plan only goes to shit when the Greyjoy fleet can teleport and the Lannister's pulled a new army out of their ass to sack Highgarden in less than a fucking day. Still not much reason to not torch the Red Keep and then go take Casterly rock though.

“We’re not going to give you the next seven years of Star Wars and $900 million in budget for three movies with that kind of performance. The only reason we wanted to hire you was that you had Game of Thrones hype behind you.”

What sucks is that because of the way D&D handled it all the contracts are up. To get everyone back on board is going to be tough.

I hope D&D will have their names stained for a long time. What they did to this show was a travesty, they had everything handed to them and they still took a shitty route. No one to blame but them, outside of GRMM of course.

HBO and GRRM wanted more episodes/seasons. D&D refused and even wanted to make only seven seasons - I guess it has something to do with the fact they got the rights for Star Wars. They lost interest in GoT and it shows.

If the writers didn't all of a sudden become idiots we could've witnessed one of the most insane finales in TV history.

Literally expand on the NK a little more. Don't make Tyrion and every character an idiot with the "kidnap a wight bullshit". Have the descent to madness and every other character arc clearer with more episodes. Pretty obvious stuff was rushed.

I lost respect when they hatched that plan to go get a wight and bring it south. Not only that, but the entire episode Beyond the Wall was just hot fuckin' garbage. All my friends loved it but I told them that was just too much Hollywood and not what GoT is about. NOT TO MENTION HOW FUCKIN' STUPID OF A PLAN THAT WAS.

Think to yourself, that entire storyline beyond the wall, the people that died, everything that happened, the time it took up in S7, Viserion, the wall coming down, all of it, all of it was to bring a wight to show Cersei, just for her to ignore it anyway.

This will never happen. Personally, I'd rather just wait for the books to finish and then have a proper adaption of ASOIAF. It sucks that such a great show is ending in such a shitty way, but it is what it is.

Yup, clear out Cersei and bring the other houses in line. Brief period of prosperity. Night King breaches the wall using his connection to Bran to open the westward weirwood gate. Massive battle bringing Westeros to its knees as they try to stop him. Revisit the reach, riverlands etc. Final season Dany losing her mind slowly as she's doesn't get her way.

They had the money to make 13 seasons with no problem but D&D decided to reduce to 6 episodes just because they wanted to work with Disney....They didn't even bother to pass the series to someone else and preferred to ruin it....

This is the saddest part to me. They could have passed it on to someone with a passion for the source material and we would all benefit. Or let GRRM have a bit more influence on the overarching narrative and just focus on details so we don't get the bafflingly stupid decisions from characters who were proven intelligent.